celebrity connections

What Advice Did Michael Jackson Give Aaron Paul?

Yes, you read the two names in the headline correctly. You’re probably scratching your head right now and asking yourself, When, where, why, and how did the paths of the King of Pop and Jesse Pinkman intersect!!? (With that precise phrasing, we’re sure).

Well, let’s set the scene. It’s six years ago, and we’re outside London, at a castle, at the 25th birthday party of a prince (Azim of Brunei). Aaron, at the time a relatively unknown actor, was, as the Post puts it, a “random plus-one” to the glam shindig.

Curious, wide-eyed, and adventurous as ever, Aaron chased after livestock and took to the air, as one apparently does at a royal’s birthday party.

“We got there and I see . . . like a thousand sheep, surrounding the castle, and I said, ‘Let’s go chase after them.’ So me and the prince and the princesses . . . chased the animals,” Paul told Details, going on to explain that he ended up accidentally breaking one of the prince’s hovercrafts. “Nobody else was riding them . . . but if I have a chance to hovercraft around a castle, I’m going to hovercraft.”

Anyway, after all of this gallivanting, Aaron ended up in the library, where Michael Jackson was hanging out with the prince. (We hope the reporter double-checked with Aaron at this point that this wasn't, like, a dream he had had the night before that he was recounting, as opposed to an actual series of events that took place in real life.)

“[The prince] is sitting on the couch with Michael Jackson, and me and [Michael] end up having this hour-long heart-to-heart about family and upbringings, and I remember, he just put his arm around my shoulder and said, ‘You know, if you’ve had a rough childhood or not, it’s all about forgiveness,’” Paul said. “‘Once you realize that, it’s fine. Everything’s fine.’ And I’m like, ‘Michael, you are absolutely right.’ And then I go, ‘Do you want to do a shot?’ And he goes, ‘Sure!’ And I was like, ‘OK, Michael, let’s do this.’”

So, to recap, Aaron Paul went to a prince’s birthday party at a castle in England where he chased sheep, hovercrafted, and then hung out with Michael Jackson in a library, where they took shots together. Never has a news item seemed so Mad Libs-generated.